<p>well first of all thanks for reading this post. i was confused whether i shud write this in engineering forum or pharmarcy or med forum lol </p>
<p>my mom has a pharmarcist license. she is not a practitioner yet as she has to pass that ridiculous toefl requirement (and as this suggests, shes foreigner and so am i)</p>
<p>as im going into my senior year of high school, now i gotta decide my major for college. i was leaning heavily toward electrical engineering. however, i dont know if this comes from asians' extreme prejudice against engineering major or not, my rents think its bad idea and they are busy scarring me about taking the path of ece major.</p>
<p>so their solution is me being a pharmarcist. but they realized that all the real pharmarcist degree stuff starts at grad school level, so all the undergraduate stuff i have to do is just a pre pharmarcy studies. then, i figured, why not major ece for undergrad, do the pre pharmarcy at the same time, and go to grad school for pharmarcy?</p>
<p>however, thats where the questions arise:
1. would it be EXTREMLY hard to go through that way in undergrad level (pre pharmarcy studies and ece at the same time)? i know that engineering is tough so would that be going thru 4 years of hell with great chance of flunking the grades??</p>
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<li>also, if i major in ece, would it help for me to get into pharmarcy grad school? i know ece deals with physics mostly but isnt pharmarcy studies mostly bio and chem studies??then would i have to take a lot more courses to satisfy the requirements?? </li>
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<p>well please answer my questions and thanks for reading. im more nervous about getting into schools first as i dont have much self confidence and feel like im being way too optimistic. nevertherless i think these are important questions toward future and i really want to know, whether i can make to the colleges i wanna go first.</p>
<p>Typical Asian Kid Wanting to Please Everyone. Stop the madness. Tell your mother you cannot become the pharmacist she wanted to be. Get some self confidence. Your parents may start respecting you if you made your own choices. What is your gpa? SAT I scores? SAT II scores?</p>
<p>Pharmacy has a lot of chemistry. I cannot imagine that if you like EE or ECE, that you would be happy in pharmacy. Don’t go to pharmacy school until you do a few job shadowing experiences, as you may hate it. </p>
<p>Job availability in any major really depends on where you live and if you are willing to relocate. EE, ECE and pharmacy all have good job availability. Every single person in EE at my son’s school graduated with either a job or with grad school plans. Don’t worry about jobs before you even go to college!</p>
<p>hmm see im more worried about the jobs stuff because i dont even have a green card. i have only visa. when economy is turning like this, i think it will be extremely hard for me to get a green card, which is the 1st priority for me, and i dotn know which is more helpful for me when im getting my green card : ece or pharm degree???</p>
<p>. here is the thing: i heard the demand for pharmarcists will go down around 2020, which is the period i will get my pharmd (assuming that everything goes well) is that true?</p>
<p>as others have pointed out, there is little to no overlap between pharmacy studies and electrical engineering. You have to check the pharmacy programs you want to attend, and make sure you take the necessary pre-requisite classes before you enroll in pharmacy school.</p>
<p>At most campuses, the average GPA for electrical engineering majors is lower tha nfor non-engineering majors. If you have little interest in practicing EE as a backup career, Isuggest you pick something else to study, something you like, and something you can do well in.</p>
<p>You should know, the application process for pharmacy school is pretty competitive. Having a good GPA and test-scores is important…well that’s true of many grad programs leading to high-paying jobs.</p>
<p>As far as green card status, in good economic times, if you are a good enough candidiate, you will employers willing to sponsor you for green-card.</p>
<p>And don’t let the other people here discourage you. If you are just AverageAsian or even the uncommon BelowAverageAsian, there are campuses that will take us! Hope to see you at UC Riverside!</p>
<p>There are a number of 6 year PharmD programs, which you enter right after high school. However, I wouldn’t recommend them if your true passion lies elsewhere.</p>
<p>i know a classmate of mine, we’re both chemical engineers. He focuses on pharmaceutical industry by taking a bunch of biochemistry as electives. You might be able to do that.
To be honest, I think you should be the one choosing the major. Engineering is great, has lots of opportunities, and it can be lots of fun. I seriously can’t imagine myself studying something I’m not really interested, thats why i hardly ever pass my G.E.'s :P</p>
<p>I am not sure why Asians have a bias against engineering, but in the U.S. I would say that there is very little that compares to an engineering degree. As far as a foreign employment upon graduation, I cant help. I will say that I think the demand for Pharmacists will certainly go down exponentially at some point in the future. The process of retrieving medicine is bound to end up automated whenever regulators lift the grips a little bit. As of now the only thing stopping an automated system is a bunch of red tape. Yes, pharmacist have a critical role, but I am certain that algorithms could accomplish a nearly identical product with a little work and better kept databases.</p>
<p>purduefrank, you are fairly accurate in your assessment of pharmacy. Filling prescriptions has gone from old-fashioned compounding to manual medication selection to robotic filling. Assessment of orders has gone from manual inspection using reference materials to computer programs that catch any problems. HOWEVER, nothing will ever completely take the place of the the human component. Computerized programs to analyze drug regimens along with robotic dispensing are frankly more accurate than humans. But these things have helped to free up time in a busy day to talk to patients, to offer solutions that don’t fit the algorithm, to assume a teaching role in the community and hospitals, etc - in other words, to offer a higher level of clinical service that was previously not possible because of those mundane tasks.</p>
<p>ikkim12, pharmacy is nothing like engineering. Unless you go to work for a pharmaceutical manufacturer, it will not even be close. Follow your dream, not your mother’s. She is a pharmacist because she wanted to be one; you should make your own way. (Just my motherly opinion!)</p>
<p>ChemEng -> Pharmacy. This is a realistic path. </p>
<p>I don’t understand your motivations for starting with EE. By electing to complete a pharmacy degree afterward, you will have nullified your ece degree. You will forget what you have learned and wasted time and money. You may be worse off earning the two degrees than earning one, after you factor in debt and opportunity costs. In addition, you may take longer finishing your bachelor’s because of pharmacy prereqs, necessary for certain fast-track 3-4 yrs. program. </p>
<p>Everything is possible, but not everything makes sense to try and accomplish, ikkim12. Ambition to a point is good. It should also be coupled with honesty.</p>
<p>I got the impression that ikkim12 was going to start EE because he really wanted it, but was offering to switch to pharmacy to placate his mother (while hoping to never have to actually make the change two years down the road )</p>
<p>You don’t necessarily need a BS to apply to Pharm school. In fact, at my UG, students typically spent 2 years and then applied directly to Pharmacy schools. Hell, I know a few kids who applied after one year (AP credit out most of the prereqs). </p>
<p>Anyway, I agree with the above posters. ECE and PharmD have nothing to do with each other and doing them both is a waste of time.</p>
<p>Yes engineering is possible. But the pre-pharm requirements are no jokes. They are even harder than pre-med pre-reqs because most programs don’t require you to get a bachelors. To apply to most schools you need:</p>
<p>1 year general bio (with lab)
1 semester human physio (with lab), 1 semester human anatomy (with lab), 1 semester microbio (with lab) (some require all some don’t)
1 year of college math (calculus, sum require stats)
1 year of g-chem
1 year of o-chem
1 year of physics
1 semester of econ
1 semester of public speaking
social science/humanities requirement</p>
<p>This is no joke lol. If you plan to do engineering I would say best would be chemical engineering. The curriculum will cover the math, chemistry, and physics requirements. If you pursue an electrical engineering curriculum it will only cover the math and physics requirement. So if you can handle it then do it. If you can’t then don’t.</p>
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